


a thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices

by brahe



Series: brahe's 2017 advent bingo [18]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, War, ac2017, adventchallenge, bffs poe and rey and finn and rose, resistance leader poe, space mom leia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-17 14:29:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13078839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brahe/pseuds/brahe
Summary: The Resistance limps to a new base, and Poe comes further into his role as their leader.





	a thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices

**Author's Note:**

> Fill for the prompt "candle"  
> This ended up not being very holiday related but oh well. I busted this out after seeing tlj for the third time.  
> Title from o holy night

The outpost they end up at is a leftover relic of the Clone Wars, a small station with old crates of fuel and food. The air inside the door is stagnant and dusty, just like the rest of the moon, but it's secure and defendable and under the radar enough to last a few weeks at least.

They land the _Falcon_  just inside the hanger, and the meager remnants of the Resistance spread out, scouring the base for supplies. Poe leads the biggest group in search of the head office and the power generators.

"Are you sure we can get power to this place?" Finn asks him softly as they walk side by side through the cooridors dimly lit by the setting sun.

"I have to be," Poe tells him honestly, and yeah, Finn supposed, he does. The dark, they can handle. The cold, too, is most likely survivable. But if they can't make radio contact with another branch of the Resistance, they're simply postponing the end.

Finn reaches for Poe's hand, threads their fingers together and squeezes, offers a smile when Poe turns to look at him. He believes in Poe as much as he believes in this rebellion, and he'll do what he can to keep them both standing and strong.

Poe squeezes his hand back and doesn't let go.

  


Rose finds the main power and throws the braker as the sun sets outside, and the lights in the base flicker slowly to life, protesting the treatment after years of darkness. Poe's team had set up in the control room some time before, and the rest of their small band files into the room not long after the lights come on.

Leia and Connix begin work on broadcasting a signal, and Poe begins an inventory.

"There's a few old fuel cells near the generator," Rose tells him. "It should still run fine in the newer engines."

"We found some crates of old War-era dry goods," Rey says. "Ration bars and protein packs, mostly, but enough to last everyone several days, at least."

"Our beacon is live," Connix announces, and the last of the Resistance bustles around the room as Poe falls into a chair, suddenly weary and exhausted. They have the supplies to make it through at least this one night, and they've achieved their main objective in coming here. He sighs, deep and long, and sags further into the seat, rubbing at his temples.

"It never gets easier," Leia says from beside him. He cracks an eye open to look at her. "You just get better at handling it. At pretending you know what to do until you actually figure it out. At leading."

"I don't know how I thought I was ready for _all_ of this," Poe admits, and Leia laughs.

"I do," she says. "You are. You've been a leader since I met you all those years ago. You're just finally coming into it."

"How you've done this so well for so long is beyond me," he says. Leia takes one of his hands, and feels the familiar warmth that always flows between them when Leia allows it to. He's no Jedi, and neither is she, though she's much more in tune with all that than he is. It's comforting all the same, brings up memories of the tree in their yard on Yavin, of Leia and Luke at the end of the Empire, of his mother and father and the great happiness they shared despite everything, in spite of everything.

"You get used to it. This is a war; it always has been." 

Poe looks across the room at Finn, who's seated with Rey in front of him, fumbling with her hair as Rose tries to show him how to do her buns.

Leia follows his gaze and smiles. "We fight for freedom, for hope, for love. For love most of all. It gets hard to remember that, but it's imperative that you do. Love will always hurt, but the moment you stop is the moment you lose."

"You're starting to sound like Luke," Poe tells her, looking back with a smile, and he remembers himself when the ghost of a shadow passes over her face. He makes to apologize, but she holds up a hand.

"You must never stop loving," she reminds him, shrugs a little to herself. "Besides, he isn't really gone. Not to me."

Leia opens her hand and turns it over, two dice connected on a chair appearing in her palm for a moment before they disappear again.

Poe watches the dice as they vanish, and the air around him is sad and tired. He watches Leia carefully for a moment, but she gives nothing away, and he sighs.

"Go to your boy," she says to him. "There isn't anything else to do tonight."

Poe stands, hovers for a moment before wrapping Leia into a gentle hug, pressing a light kiss to her forehead.

"Hold onto him," she whispers, and for the first time Poe thinks he catches a glimpse of the immense loss Leia carries with her. It rips into him fast and sharp and it's gone by the next breath, leaving a phantom, foreign pain in his chest. "At the end of the day, this is what matters the most."

This, a broken and limping resistance, tucked away in the bones of a Jedi outpost, laughing together, helping each other stand.

Leia squeezes a hand on his shoulder for a moment longer, and then she's pushing him away, across the room towards Finn, who looks up at Poe with a smile that could rival the sun, that knocks the breath out of Poe for a wondrous heartbeat, makes him feel like a planet trapped in the gravity of a supernova. Finn shines so bright, determination and love like a fire, strong and steady and only growing bigger. He's everything Poe thinks he ever needed without realizing, and sometimes he's just so genuinely amazed that he gets to know what the smile tastes like, what that sun feels like against his skin.

Poe takes a seat beside Finn, who pauses his hair-styling to give a Poe a comprehensive once-over.

"Hey," he says softly, catches Poe's jaw with his free hand to kiss him quick and sweet. "Everything okay?"

Poe nods, chases Finn's lips for another kiss.

"Everything's okay," he says, and Finn considers him a moment longer before nodding, satisfied.

Rey tries to look at Poe from the corner of her eye. "He's helpless," she tells him, and Rose agrees with a bout of bright laughter.

"This isn't easy!" Finn exclaims in an attempt to defend himself. Poe watches him try a piece of a new braid Rose just taught him, and chuckles when Rey's hair slips between his fingers.

"Here, try like this," Poe says, leaning over to gather Rey's hair, and then the lights flicker once, twice, and then off, plunging them into complete and sudden darkness.

In half a moment some sight returns, the weak light of the moons struggling through the skylights in the room.

"Rose!" Poe calls, and when he squints around him, he sees her already dashing off.

"On it!"

"Rey," Poe says, "did you find any flares or candles or some kind of light in any of those boxes?"

There's a breath or two of silence, and then Finn's shifting against him as Rey stands, headed for the boxes they had brought into the control room.

"There's a few candles in here," Rey announces, and there's rustling as she digs for them, presents them to Poe with a smile.

"Lighter?" he asks, and for a moment she looks panicked, until Finn finishes one out of one of the several pockets in his pants and passes it to Poe.

There's six candles in total and a little less than a hundred of them, mostly all packed into this one room.

Poe lights the candles and passes them out, the room slowly bathed in soft, flickering orange light.

"Everyone good?" he asks, when all the candles have been passed out, and there's a murmur of assent around the room. 

Rose comes back, then, though it isn't with good news. "I can't get the generator back on," she tells him quietly. "I can get it to sputter once or twice, but it's just too old. It's not coming back."

"Okay," Poe sighs.

"Our beacon has gone off," Connix says, and yeah, Poe figured that. He settles his hands on his hips.

"Is there any kind of auxiliary power we can rig up? At least get the beacon going, and the heater if we can."

Rose starts nodding. "I can see what I can do," she says, and before she leaves the room again she gathers some tools and a candle and yells for a few people, and the small group heads out.

Poe looks around the room, floundering for a solution.

"What's the plan?" Finn asks, coming to stand beside him. If it were anyone else, with the exception of Leia, Poe would've lied. He would've thought of something quick and reassuring, he knows, but this is Finn.

"I don't know," Poe admits, shoulders sagging just a little. "We'll be fine for the night, I think, and the day tomorrow, but after that... We can't stay without power, but I don't know where else we can go." 

"Relax." That's Leia, coming up on Poe's other side. "We'll make it just fine for now."

Poe lets out a breath. He knows she's right, but he still feels a little useless.

"Yeah, I mean, we've got some light, we've got a roof over our heads, and we've got each other," Finn agrees.

Poe nods. They're right, and the reassurances are bringing his stress down to a manageable level.

"Let's get everyone sorted into rooms," Poe says. "Turn in for the night and worry about everything else in the morning." 

  


Everyone gets divided into groups with a candle each, and the barracks are quickly filled with tired soldiers. Poe and Leia linger last, and when Finn comes to collect Poe, Leia waves them on their way.

"I'll finish up," she tells them. "Go. Get some sleep. Force knows you need it."

Poe presses a kiss to her cheek. "You need to rest, too," he says. She smiles at him.

"I will. Go."

He turns to Finn, who's waiting for him with a gentle smile. Finn takes his hand when they start walking, and it's warm and comforting in its familiarity.

They're in a room beside Rey and Rose. It's small, two beds barely big enough for one pushed to either side, leaving a small hallway between them.

Poe closes the door behind them and leans against it, watches Finn move around, slipping off his shoes and jacket. Poe reaches for him and he comes slowly, until he's bracketed Poe against the door, and then they're kissing, a slow slide of lips. Finn's hands cup the sides of Poe's face, slide into his hair, and Poe's got a grip on Finn's arms, then his waist, slides his fingers under the hem of his shirt to rub at bare skin.

Finn pulls him slowly away from the door, and then they're faced with the problem of the two beds.

"We won't - " he starts.

"I know," Poe agrees. "We could - "

"Yeah," Finn says, but they stay standing together for a moment longer, foreheads pressed together.

Finn steps away first, shoos Poe out of the way, and slides the one bed across the floor until it's pressed flush with the other.

"Come on," he tells Poe softly, tugs at his arm until they fall onto the makeshift bed, limbs tangled.

For a while they simply breathe together. Poe listens to the sound of Finn's heartbeat underneath his ear, lets himself forget everything but the way he feels right now.

"Thank you," he says, mumbles, really, and Finn's chest moves with soft laughter. He drops a kiss to Poe's hair.

"Any time," he promises. 


End file.
